Arsenal vs. Liverpool

Arsenal - Liverpool

After the much needed win over ManU on Sunday Liverpool return to action tonight as we face Arsenal's young guns in the Carling Cup. Both sides will make wholesale changes to the sides that turned out for Premier League duty last Sunday, however Arsenal are the side that will most likely make most changes.

Arsenal Team News:

Samir Nasri is back after injury and is expected to start his first match of the season along with Polish goalkeeper Lukasz Fabianski. Arsene Wenger likes to use the Carling Cup as a means of bringing through young players and also giving the more experienced, yet underused senior squad members a match, so Philippe Senderos and Mikael Silvestre are both expected to come in to help the young stars.

Player to watch: Jack Wilshere

Wilshere is being tipped to be a very bright star in the future, some had even been tipping him to force his way into the England squad for next summers World Cup Finals. The Carling Cup is his platform to really perform this season so we'll need to be weary of the young midfielder.

Liverpool Team News:

Fernando Torres and Glen Johnson both came through the ManU win with no serious reaction to injuries but are expected to make way to the substitutes bench. Stevie Gerrard is again missing, but should return against Fulham, along with Albert Riera and Martin Kelly. Andrea Dossena and Sotirios Kyrgiakos are both fit again and Alberto Aquilani is poised to make his Reds debut.

Player to watch: David Ngog

Ngog is expected to be given a starting place so the young French star should have another chance to impress Rafa. Cameo appearances as a substitute and starts in the Carling Cup give the striker the opportunity to continue his progress, so the more he takes this the better it can help him develop. Aquilani, should he start or come on (coming on is most likely what will happen), will also be the focus of much attention.

Match Facts & Stats

Ref Watch:

Alan Wiley will officiate.

Match Prediction:

The Carling Cup is at the bottom end of our priority listing this season, however this is still a Cup that I want us to do well in and a Cup that we have a rich tradition in. Arsenal's young team is a match for anyone and will test us and unfortunately I feel they'll want it that little bit more so Arsenal 3 Liverpool 2 is my prediction.

Don't see us getting anything from this one. Shame, as would have liked a run in this competition. Arsenal's 2nd string are stronger than ours and we have too big games coming up to risk the 1st team. Hopefully proved wrong.

Having seen the game, and not here to gloat just ask a question. How and why has Ryan Babel become so ****** in such a short time. Early last season he was as good a wide man as there was in the Prem, now I wouldn't have him in my Sunday Parks team.

Sorry JohnDoe, but the only players I saw continually diving the entire game were kuyt, babel and voronin. Still they're not a patch on the maestros, gerrard, torres and the daddy of them all, ALONSO!!!!

Bendtner did dive in the first half, but what did you make of Degen's fall in the second half after expecting contact by Gibbs? It was the same situation, only the ref didn't have as good of a view on the Bendtner situation, thus the reason the foul was given. Every team has players that do this, so anyone trying to claim moral high-ground is delusional.

Watched the highlights and it looked to me like Liverpools reserves had Arsenal's reserves under the cosh for much of the second half, and they really tried hard for the equaliser. Just wish more teams would take this competition a tiny bit more seriously and field more than just fringe players!

It was a great game last night, one/two touch football from both teams. Arsenal probably shaded it a little and deserved it on balance but we definitely contributed to the overall quality of the game (which is not something I thought I would say looking at a teamsheet with Voronin/Degen etc). Even though we went out, it will have done some of the younger players good (N'Gog/Plessis/Spearing) to be involved in a quality performance. Great game, really enjoyed it and it is not something I can often say when we get beat.

I thought the game was way closer than reported by the BBC and the gutter tabloids. Arsenal have some nice young players coming through but so have we. bseymour I think you may have picked up Wengers glasses by mistake.

Liverpool_lad, that was stupid. We've got Fabio Borini, Gael Katuka, Miroslav Stoch, Franco Di Santo, Jeffery Bruma, Michael Mancienne, Sam Hutchinson, Danny Mills- All of whom are in the fringes of the first team. What is so difficult for a muppet like you to understand is that they are all out on loan, or are far too young to be brought on. We are not Arsenal to use this competition as a day care outing. Silverware counts- Which you or Arsenal wont know much about, I understand. And you talking about poor quality of our youngsters is fairly shocking, considering that Spearing and Plessis have'nt made any waves with their performance. In fact, they would'nt even walk into our reserve side. NGog is a *****, much like Babel. He'll go out as a miserable flop like Andriy Voronin. You want to take a dig at us, unprovoked? Well, then atleast do so in a field where we really are lacking.. I can think of a thousand such subjects about your club.

I was disappointed to lose this match but we didn't have anything to be ashamed of as it was a good match between two good sides. I'm not one of those that subscribes to the "bigger fish to fry" thoughts though, even if we do. Sorry for the lack of a match report, this was meant to be covered only for me to find out when it was too late that it wasn't.

Slight over reaction there JT... did you not see the little smiley thing at the end of my comment... obviously not by your dummy spitting!! :)
It was meant sarcastically m8 so you can put away those claws for another day!!

No hard feelings JT :) To be honest, I was sarcastically remarking to FCB's comment about taking the league cup seriously and I mistakenly thought he was a chelsea fan... hence my comment :)
Anyways, glad we cleared that up :)

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